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I was among the 100,000 who marched in San Francisco’s Women’s March the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration. While enthusiasm for the struggle seemed high, an important question was looming: What’s the strategic plan, as we head into the Trump era? Although there’s no simple answer, I offer this 10-point plan — fully open for discussion and debate.

1. Recognize that we represent the majority, not Trump.

Three times more people participated in the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., than were present at the inauguration the day before. He lost the popular vote in the election. Many of his own voters admitted in exit polls that they consider him unqualified to be president. Furthermore, Trump plans to target progressive policies that polls find to be supported by solid majorities of Americans.

Trump does have strengths in addition to his brilliance in manipulating mainstream media. Key parts of the economic elite have decided that they can use him for their own goals. So, they will support him — as long as he can deliver acceleration of school privatization, for example, or the fossil fuel pipelining of America. His core voting base (the minority of a minority) may support him for a period, until his failure to deliver unrealistic promises becomes apparent.

Even before the inauguration, he alienated significant parts of the security state that he needs to depend on. He needs a vast professional bureaucracy to carry out his will, but it has many subtle ways of thwarting him. Harry Truman famously admitted, publicly, his frustration after he was repeatedly stymied by an uncooperative bureaucracy.

Trump’s bullying is both a strength and a weakness. His style alienates many, including among his own voters, and stirs opposition.

Stopping Trump is not a slam dunk, but it is possible when he is given his due as a cagey opponent. It also helps when we decide to be strategic rather than led by fear and moral outrage, jumping from whichever tactic feels good in the moment, but has little impact. Now is the time when we can identify his pillars of support and lay plans to undermine them.

2. Strengthen civic institutions and their connections with targeted populations.

Trump will continue to turn to the age-old weapon of scapegoating to shore up his working-class base, and he’ll feel more pressure to do that as his own programs for “making America great again” fail to deliver the goods to that base — even while enriching the economic elite.

Some sanctuary cities have already made a good start by declaring their resistance to anti-immigrant moves by the federal government. Activists can reinforce these initiatives with a range of civic and religious institutions, urging them to strengthen their connections with scapegoated groups like Jews, immigrants and African Americans. The civics may not by themselves always think of this, so it may take activists within or near them to alert them to their responsibility of solidarity.

Because we are the majority, we can make full use of Bill Moyer’s four roles of social change. Consider: How can advocates, helpers, organizers and rebels strengthen their solidarity impact? Training for Change organizer Daniel Hunter brainstormed some possible moves: Advocates persuade cities and states to give drivers licenses to undocumented people. Organizers create circles of solidarity in which citizens could physically intervene — when immigrants are in danger —and surround the vulnerable ones. (The New Sanctuary Movement in Philadelphia calls this “sanctuary in the streets.”) Helpers could insist that they provide food and healthcare to people in deportation centers, and if entry is refused, collaborate with rebels to break in with food and risk arrest.

3. Play offense, not defense.

The last time progressives in the United States faced this degree of danger was when Ronald Reagan became president. One of Reagan’s first acts was to fire the air traffic controllers when they went on strike, putting into question national air safety. Strategically, he chose “shock and awe,” and it worked – most of the U.S. movements for change went on the defensive.

Gandhi and military generals agree: No one wins anything of consequence on the defensive. I define “defensive” as trying to maintain previous gains. U.S. movements in 1980 made many gains in the previous two decades. Understandably, they tried to defend them. As Gandhi and generals would predict, the movements instead lost ground to the “Reagan Revolution” and, for the most part, have lost ground ever since.

One exception stands out: the LGBT movement. Instead of defending, for example, local gains in city human relations commissions, LGBT people escalated in the 1980s with ACT-UP leading the way. They followed up with the campaign for equal marriage and escalated again with the demand for equality in the military.

LBGT people proved that Gandhi and the generals are right: The best defense is an offense.

I hear many American progressives unconsciously talking about Trump defensively, preparing to make precisely the same mistake as an older generation did with Reagan. The LGBT’s lesson is obvious: heighten nonviolent direct action campaigns and start new ones. Instead of defending Obamacare, let’s push for an even more comprehensive health solution, like Medicare for all.

A direct action campaign is defined by a pressing issue, a clear demand, and a target that can yield that demand. Powerful social movements, even those that overthrew military dictatorships, have often been built in exactly this way.

These days, campaign design needs to take account of the recent impact of social media. Because many people have allowed social media to draw them into an isolating bubble, activists need to design campaigns that deliberately increase their base through building relationships “beyond the choir.” Increased use of training may be necessary to maximize impact.

4. Link campaigns to build movements.

Standing Rock is a current example of the synergistic and expanding effect of linking campaigns. Pipeline fights, indigenous rights, and even the role of Veterans for Peace — in raising questions about the U.S. empire — were all amplified through linking to the ongoing campaign in North Dakota.

The classic American example of campaign linkage grew from the simple act of four college students in North Carolina on Feb. 1, 1960, starting their campaign to desegregate a lunch counter. Students in other towns followed the example, and the wave of sit-ins became a movement. The movement helped grow existing organizations — for example, the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, which then started a new kind of campaign, the Freedom Rides. Multiple freedom rides were linked and further built the strength of the civil rights movement.

These campaigns did not have the American majority on their side, nor did they win all their demands, but their cumulative value forced major changes and eventually changed public opinion as well. The civil rights movement illustrates the crucial difference in mode of operation between direct action campaigns and political parties’ campaigns.

Democrats, for example, are hugely about polls and focus groups. Their power rests on current public opinion and its manipulation through electioneering and political maneuver. Even for progressive-inclined Democrats, the ability to act is tightly limited by the narrow range of current opinion (not to mention by what the economic elite is willing to allow).

Social movements, by contrast, can take stands that go beyond current opinion and wage campaigns that have transformative impact, such as women’s right to vote, gay rights and stopping pipelines. This difference helps explain why progressive Democrats habitually fight defensively, while movements are free to stay on the offensive and win. Bernie Sanders, for example, is now defensively fighting to save Medicare. By contrast, a social movement is free to launch a fight for single-payer health care. Such a struggle could threaten to split off part of Trump’s working class base and — even if it failed to fully achieve its goal – save more of Medicare.

5. Link movements to create a movement of movements.

When times are out of joint, a successful movement around one issue inspires campaigns on other issues to link and become new movements. That’s what happened the last time the U.S. took major steps toward justice. The civil rights movement begat the Berkeley Free Speech campaign and the national student movement for university reform, the draft resistance campaign and the anti-Vietnam war movement, and so on — energizing seniors, people with disabilities, mental health consumers, women, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, auto workers and many more.

With so many movements developing, A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin catalyzed the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, hoping to start linking movements into a movement of movements. They glimpsed an opportunity to amass so much power independent of the major parties that the United States could develop a counter-force to the economic elite and bring about democratic socialism. Creating an independent movement of movements was the successful path taken by the Scandinavians, and both Randolph and Rustin wanted it for the United States.

Substantial linkage, however, was not available at that time. For one thing, the U.S. economy was booming, and there wasn’t enough discontent in the white working class — let alone the burgeoning middle class — to create an opening. What’s more, racism was still too intense, although the United Auto Workers had successfully found a way forward by uniting black and white workers to fight employers in the auto industry. In the past half century, much has changed on both those dimensions.

My point is that multiple campaigns on the same or similar issues generates a movement, and that multiple movements provide the opportunity for a movement of movements. The closer we come to that point, the more pressure there is on the Democrats to co-opt us. The Republicans’ historic role is usually repression, while the Democrats’ job is to limit and control grassroots movements by pulling them into the party.

We saw that happen to the later stage of the civil rights movement and again with the Democrat-embraced health reform movement of 2007-9, when the single-payer option — and even the public option — was dropped to pass the medical industrial complex-friendly Affordable Care Act.

When a social movement is independent, it can force the Democrats to become allies instead of controllers. The civil rights movement did exactly that before 1965; we see what it can look like in the excellent film “Selma.” On a more micro level, Daniel Hunter — in his book “Strategy and Soul” — reveals how a neighborhood-based movement forced politicians to come to the campaigners, instead of the campaigners seeking help from the politicians.

Whatever our partisan sympathies, a quick look at political trends in the United States shows why movement independence is more crucial now than at any time in the last half-century.

Public alienation from the major parties – Republican or Democratic – has gone off the charts. Voters stay away from the polls, as if afraid of catching germs. The Tea Party gains more cred when it trashes the Republican Party. Donald Trump reassures his voter base by verbally attacking Congress – both parties, no less — in his inaugural address. Much of his voter base had long since left the Democratic Party because of its own betrayal of working-class interests. Black working-class voters also signaled their alienation by failing to give full support to Hillary Clinton, despite Barack and Michelle Obama’s entreaties.

Such a period of alienation is just the time for direct action campaigns that fight for progressive demands — like $15 per hour and Medicare for all — to signal independence from the politicians who bear so much responsibility for U.S. decline. Such independence appeals to the vast majority, including many Trump voters. A self-respecting movement of movements knows that the Democrats will then come to them and offer to be allies.

6. Avoid one-off demonstrations.

This political moment adds force to the sizable advantage of direct action campaigns over single demonstrations, however large. Protests are by their nature reactive. In these next years, predictably, Trump will act and progressives will react, then Trump will act again and progressives will react again. Trump, an accomplished fighter, knows that staying on the offensive is what enables him to win. Progressives, often led by people with a track record of loss, take the bait and react, over and over.

Simple protests, no matter what the issue, essentially signal to Trump that he is winning — he has manipulated us into reacting.

I realize that reactivity is a habit among many activists, and may take heroic self-discipline to avoid. An alternative is to organize a campaign, or join a campaign near you, even if the issue is not your favorite, and plunge in with full talent and energy.

7. Heighten the contrast in confrontations between the campaigners’ behavior and our right-wing opponents.

Many have noted Trump’s signals to his white supremacist and other allies that violence is an acceptable means to use against us.

This is an old story in the United States, and there’s no reason to let it throw us. Through clear nonviolent policy, like that of the Women’s March that urged against bringing anything that could be considered a weapon, we remain centered and able to attract large numbers. Some movements have made grave mistakes by responding to violent attacks in kind, losing ground on their goals as a result. Others have performed brilliantly, as did the civil rights campaigns that faced down the largest sustained terrorist organization in U.S. history, the KKK, often without protection from local law enforcement and even federal authorities.

The Global Nonviolent Action Database presents campaigns in almost 200 countries, including many nations where repressive violence was far worse than it has been in the United States. The database makes it possible to search for campaigns that faced repressive violence and to learn how they handled it. It is easy to find out, therefore, what worked and what didn’t, and to reinforce the lessons through training.

8. Aim to unite around a vision for justice, equality and freedom.

Individuals, campaigns, and movements all gain greater power and credibility through projecting a vision of what they want, as well as what they don’t want. They grow more easily, withstand attacks more easily, and have an easier time maintaining their boldness and creativity. “Protest movements” like Occupy are notoriously fragile and precarious; sustainable movements like the struggle for LGBT rights and equality have a liberating vision. The homophobes were right: We did have a “homosexual agenda!”

The good news is that on August 1, 2016, the Movement for Black Lives offered a vision that can be a draft for dialogue for many campaigns and movements. Many groups have already endorsed it. The vision is bold, substantive and so different from the present that it is even in alignment with the best practices of the Nordic countries. In that sense, it is highly practical and backed by a half-century track record. Compared with the ever volatile and shifting Donald Trump act, a rough agreement on vision by a movement of movements could enhance our credibility and divide his base.

9. Make the vision more real by extending new economy institutions and coops.

These often fly under the radar in our highly politicized discourse, so two things need to happen. People who are active in campaigns and movement development need to honor the development of economic infrastructure that reflects the values of our united vision.

Donald Trump frames U.S. polarization in ways that benefit him, trying to increase the loyalty of his base. Many progressives decry the polarization, as if their upset at its ugly manifestations will make it go away. The reality is that the polarization is fundamentally linked to economic inequality and was growing for years before Trump came forward. It is not going away. The question is how to manage our fears and learn to navigate the stormy waters.

The good news is that the greatest polarization in Scandinavian history — Nazis vs. Communists in the 1920s and ‘30s — was also the time when broad people’s movements made their breakthrough, pushed the domination of their economic elites aside and invented a new model of economic justice. The polarization did not stop them — if anything, the movements used the opportunity.

Yes, polarization is dangerous. Germany and Italy polarized when Sweden and Norway did, but went fascist. Their movements made huge mistakes, mistakes avoided by the Swedes and Norwegians. Our most recent period of great polarization in the United States was also dangerous, but the 1960s and ‘70s was our period of greatest progress since the polarized 1930s.

In short, there’s good reason to see the Trump era as an opportunity not only to stop him, but to make major gains in justice and equality. It will help to learn to turn our fear into power. We’ll also need strategy, and the humility to learn from successes of other movements that have come out ahead during hard times. It is not rocket science. If we’re willing to shift personal habits and priorities, support each other through hardship, and come together on a plan, we can win. That is our opportunity.

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George Lakey has been active in direct action campaigns for six decades. Recently retired from Swarthmore College, he has facilitated 1,500 workshops on five continents and led activist projects on local, national and international levels -- most recently with Earth Quaker Action Team. Among many other books and articles, he is author of “Strategizing for a Living Revolution” in David Solnit’s book Globalize Liberation (City Lights, 2004). His 2016 book is "Viking Economics," and in December 2018 Melville House will release "How We Win: A Guide to Nonviolent Direct Action Campaigning."

56 comments

Dear George, Thanks for giving us a day or two of enjoying the massive numbers and creative signs of the women’s march before buckling up to identify or create effective campaigns/movements!

In reading #7, Standing Rock has become my model of responding to violence with great and resolute nonviolent dignity. They stand for their own tribal ground, and the protection of the waters of life everywhere. If I understand you correctly, that would be their positive offense rather than a defense. That tangible authenticity has made them immensely attractive.

What I want to ask is blurry in my mind, so please be patient. Standing Rock has had some strong wins, but I worry for their long range success given this new administration. I feel that if they were stopped, violently or not, if would be a hard blow for everyone who has cared for the well being of our earth and for the peoples of Standing Rock. As you know, it runs quite deep in many people.

Do you see any way for this to not be the end result? What more would they need? Big question. Thank you as always.

Thank you George. I called section 9 to my son’s attention in Oregon. There are so many co-ops and opportunities that could be stretched into the justice model.It’s naturally evolving there in Oregon. I think you’d like to know there’s a nonprofit bar that’s open recently that my son took me to.Charitable giving is at its core.
Judy Winters

This is very rich and sensible. Let’s play offense and see this as an opportunity. great message. I would add a few tweaks. George, your focus is very much on a national level in the US. There are many opportunities at the state and local levels to make gains in equality and justice. Campaigns at the local level like EQAT’s in Philadelphia are sensible, doable and empowering.

There are important global opportunities to fight against US jingoistic/selfish policies of “ONLY America First.” We have allies overseas (and next door) that have terrific leverage at the government level and at the people level. Although it was a “one off” the women’s march occurred around the world in more than 600 locales.

*sigh* gorgeous moments as usual Katyha!I must apologise for not responding to your email request lovely lady – I LOVED your work and fully intended to give you feedback but with the Whooping Cough etc it just slipped by – sorry! huge hugs xxx

2. Perhaps this is just reinforced a couple of George’s points, but unifying the disparate groups that, added up together, constitute the vast majority of our population, is essential. Even now, even during some of the speeches during the women’s march, partisan views rose up. This time, it might have been necessary to designate one gender for the action – there are many reasons for this, but including all people in the effort is just as necessary. I was troubled to hear Hillary Clinton’s name brought up as a rallying cry as she is not the unifying standard bearer who can lead a revolution against Trump and his (and her) Wall Street backers.

3. Identify the leaders who have proven their courage, loyalty, honesty and commitment to ideals in the face of vicious opposition. Three names come immediately to mind as I review the tactics of both parties: Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard and Nina Turner. Despite the machinery that has made a mockery of the American Democratic Process, these true statesmen (women) proved their mettle and would not be threatened or bribed to do otherwise.

Every successful movement needs a strong leader, a spokesperson who can touch the hearts of all people and speak, from the heart, the voice of the people. The Republicans understand the value of fame, notoriety and manufactured public image. The Democrats had the genuine article (Sanders) and we are all paying the price for permitting the power plays that refused him the nomination.

4. Be clear and just in our own principles and hold our elected leaders to an even higher standard. When did members of our government forget that they are servants of the people? Easy answer: every time some of them are able to. Since the days of our founders there has been corruption and it sometimes takes over until the cycle adjusts. The Tea Party extremists have achieved by maneuver what it could not by honest election: the capture of the presidency and both houses.

5. Open our eyes to our broken, desperate country. In Bob Herbert’s excellent Losing Our Way, he chronicles the decline of American prosperity. I am currently on a ten thousand mile, cross-country odyssey in which I simply observe. I listen, without challenging, the views of Americans in small towns and large cities. What I see is a country in economic depression that in no way reflects the stratospheric height of Wall Street indicators. Whole towns are shuttered up, some cities have prosperous sections surrounded by large swaths of devastation. While I have seen a few provocative, racist bumper stickers, the vast majority of people I have met who voted for Trump were simply responding to his message of anger and action. They need change and improvement in their lives and his rhetoric spoke to that.

5. We need to build bipartisan trust and collaboration. This calls for discourse that takes time, patience and far more than 140 characters at a time. Maybe the greatest surprise to me on my journey has been the warm hospitality and generally pleasant lifestyle of Americans in the southern states. Racism exists everywhere and reveals itself in various ways. I had expected to see it more openly expressed in the south, but aside from two prominent Confederate flags and a few statues dedicated to Confederate soldiers, that is not what I encountered. Instead, friendly greetings were automatic responses even to strangers in the street, of all races; the ubiquitous ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, sir’ lent an air of courteous civility to each exchange that daily elevates the quality of life.

I saw as many Confederate flags and Trump/Pence signs in my home blue state (Massachusetts) as I did in any southern state. Along with those signs I also saw evidence, everywhere, of the heroin epidemic that now plagues our country. The healthcare of the previous administration was not sufficient to deal with this problem; the current eradication of health care protection will be disastrous to a vulnerable and growing segment of our population.

In conclusion, I believe that we must each take responsibility for being informed, not through the most appealing news source to our own tastes and prejudices, but through proven journalism that answers to ethics, not ratings. Once informed, we must act with the courage of our convictions. The first step is the most difficult: I do not aspire to be a martyr for the cause, but once that first step has been taken, others. primed to take action, will not be far behind.

My family and I attended the women’s march in Philadelphia. I was impressed by the size of the crowd, diversity of causes, large number of youth and positive energy. I saw people, including speakers, who had never been at a demonstration. Newly emerging and experienced movement organizers and groups now have the opportunity to channel that energy into the well–thought-out strategic campaigns and visions mentioned by George Lakey.
As someone who has worked with movements for many years, I also saw warning signs that signal misdirection and simplicity. I will mention one: the ever-repeated chant, led from the podium, was “RESIST,” which missed the point of what we, in this newly forming movement (or movements), have to do. Resistance is a tactic (one of many), not a strategy or vision. As a main focus, resistance puts the locust and focus on Trump and other decision-makers we disagree with. “They” control our success or failure because resistance (and defending the status quo) is often not practical, winnable or good enough.
Chants during rallies should be well-thought out (as should be signs). They are what people during the rally hear and remember and they often get covered by the press. They express the soul and goals of the event. “ORGANIZE” would have been a more poignant and direction-giving chant. It tells us what we have to do. It is active, positive, flexible and leaves power in our hands. Most everyone, everywhere can organize. As George Lakey points out, we need to go beyond defending what we have, and create liberating, practical visions, strategies and institutions that are in the interest of and empowering to the vast majority of people.

Thanks for spotlighting the downside of “Resist” as a chant or slogan, Antje. It invites us to be reactive, almost freezes us into reactivity. Handing the initiative to the opponent is a deeply mistaken approach — strategically, it’s almost like saying in advance that the opponent is stronger/more clever/has the upper hand.

I can’t think of anything Trump would like better than for us to get lost in reactivity to him. He loves being the center of the world. The media might find that is highly profitable. But how does it benefit us?

Thank you for this reminder. In the potential hypnosis of a “protest high” the action verbs that lead somewhere are VERY important. The march and rally are only the most visible part of the action that has both short and long term goals of change.

The idea of a ‘Living Revolution’ takes on new significance with the publication on the web of The Final Freedoms. This describes what may very well be the only NVDA anyone will ever need to change the course of human development towards the greater goals.

“For individuals prepared to think for themselves, with the intellectual integrity to shake off their existing prejudices, who will explore outside the cultural box of history and able to stand against the tides of tribal, peer, group think, and all fashionable thought and spin, with the humility to accept correction and the moral courage to learn something new, who will TEST, discover and confirm this new insight for themselves, an intellectual, spiritual and moral revolution is under way; where the once impossible becomes inevitable, by the most potent, political, progressive, Non Violent Direct Action never imagined. One able to advance peace, justice, change and progress and which entrenched elites and the modern corporate/national security, surveillance state can neither stop nor interfere with.”
More at http://www.energon.org.uk

This a refreshing antidote to the picnic in the park aspect of the women’s march. As far as I have been able to discern there is no follow up to that one event, leaving participants to go back to daily life feeling good about themselves, but nothing more.

As to the issue of non-violence raised in point 7, I disagree. Were we to take advantage of it, we are in an excellent position to ward off the formation of gangs of thugs (brown shirts). Right now, we are only seeing sporadic acts, church burnings, beatings, rather than armed violence by massed phalanxes.

Now would be a good time for a program of targeted intimidation of potential brown shirts. They pretty easily identify themselves by flying the Confederate battle flag on their homes, cars and businesses. Firebombed structures would send the right message. Don’t mess with us; we have your number.

I’m reviewing the history of mistakes the left made in Germany and Italy during the rise of Hitler and Mussolini. It’s pretty clear that turning to intimidation and violence against the brown shirts and black shirts was a huge mistake.

The contrast with the Nordic countries, where fascism also rose and took its violent turn in the 1930s, is striking. Norwegians and Swedes did not get caught up in that violence and intimidation cycle. Their nonviolence was the superior means, and instead of spiraling into a mutual violent mess that incentivizes the middle class to clamor for a “great man” to return the society to order (Hitler, Mussolini), but Nordics used that period of polarization to make their breakthrough, to make their power shift from the dominance of the economic elite to actual democracy. I think you’ll find when you read the historical account in “Viking Economics” that you’ll much prefer the outcome of the Nordic way of fighting fascism rather than the failed German and Italian way of fighting fascism.

Reading your comment, and George’s response, I think this is an area that progressives need to develop. Is one of the reasons Martin Luther King’s rhetoric made such an impact the fact that Malcolm X’s alternatives loomed in the background? We must be aware, in this moment in history, that the alt-right is as clever, patient and methodical as its puppet president is not. We can learn from Nazi Germany but we are not living in an identical situation.

If we are to choose one issue to fight to preserve, let it be net neutrality. The brilliant response to presidential shut downs of webpages on the part of ‘rogue’ and ‘alt’ernate ego twitter feeds by: Rogue NASA, the National Parks Service, US Forest Service, alt-FDA, altHHS, altEPA, altUSDA (and the list is growing exponentially)…is neither official nor publicly funded. They need net neutrality to continue, as do we. This may be the beginning of wholesale, verifiable information to replace the carefully manipulated fake news that has influenced the American people.

At last political scientists have studied the question of whether movements that have a violent wing as well as doing nonviolent campaigning are more effective. It seems so plausible — aren’t two “weapons” or form of struggle better than one?

Erica Chenoweth, one of those political scientists who specializes in security studies/studies of terrorism reported the other day in the Washington Post that, after examining many movements that conducted their struggle with a violent wing and those that didn’t, the ones that had a violent wing were less likely to win.

Her historical observation was that the violence undermines the nonviolent campaigning.

And that would explain to me why so many governments, including our own, pay provocateurs (including in documented cases the FBI) to infiltrate our ranks and encourage — and even carry out — violence in the name of the movement. It’s an old trick. Even the British government way back when infiltrated the Indian Independence movement to try to turn it violent.

Since governments typically have far superior means of violence to what a movement can put together, it prefers to meet us on that playing field. Very much prefers it.

See also the classic study by political sociologist Martin Oppenheimer, The Urban Guerrilla.

Good morning folks and I'm sure some of you are watching hurricane Irene's movements especially if you live on the east coast. …………. I have a post called "Lancaster on 2 wheels" today on Amish Stories where i tour the Amish country side taking pictures and observations which I've just posted…………….Enjoy your weekend everyone and i hope your out of Irene's path and safe. Richard from Amish Stories.

This is the best summation I have seen and I will share it. People are flying off the handle into the ether, giving in entirely to their emotions. That is what Trump is doing and we could not be more wrong. Hillary spent the end of her campaign telling everyone what a terrible president Trump would be, not what we needed to do to organize to defeat the spirit he brought with him. We need to fill in this blank and to it ourselves — it’s the strongest, best way to succeed anyway.

Thank you. A thoughtful missive. I appreciate the looking into the future and how to get there attitude. Don’t let the emotions get in the way of solid action and intelligent endeavor. I will continue to read this as the day wears on. Have to stop and think about it on occasion. That means it’s good! 😉

Please — stop blaming the working class. Trump has a base far wider than working class white men, and in fact those who voted for him were HIGHER income Americans, $50K a year and above! Your “Trump will continue to turn to the age-old weapon of scapegoating to shore up his working-class base” is anti-working class propaganda. I’m on the same side, working class, and really tired of reading this trashing of me n’ mine over and again. –diana Mackin

Thanks, Diana, for both the fact about the income range of the majority of Trump voters and for expressing the concern about classism showing up in the way people talk about Trump’s base. I was brought up in a blue collar family and have experienced lots of class snobbery, and it still hurts. If I wrote in a sloppy way that supports stereotyping, I’m sorry.

Our dialogue, though, invites going another layer down in trying to understand what’s going on around Trump. I’ve written in this column about my working class brother who supported Trump, and the bigger picture does include my brother — that is, working class white people who used to be Democrats and were betrayed by the Party that claimed to represent them (and was supported by most of the union movement) and, understandably, turned against that Party and the Clintons who together did so much to make sure that the Party was as much on the side of economic elite as possible in what Warren Buffett has acknowledged has been a “class war.”

I’ve published a number of columns in which I try to describe what’s going on for working class people in terms middle class people will be able to appreciate — not only Jan 4 and Nov 10, and March 11, but also Nov 4, 2013 and a whole series about class and classism August-October 2012. If middle class liberals and progressives had read them I believe they wouldn’t be trashing working class people now. Come to think of it, now would be a great time to read them, since ignoring our class prejudice (along with racism and other stereotypes) does make it harder to build the broad movements that we need. And, on the other hand, gaining even some awareness can help a whole lot!

George – Hi! I was so excited to read this article, and then even more excited to recognize the name of the author! (It’s only been about 45 years since Spring Garden St!) Thank you so much for your insights and reminders. It has recently become heartening to see the convergence of old “leftists” and new, young activists- the synergy created by mixing experience, wisdom, and youth. I think we are potentially poised for some dramatic social-political advances, and when the path is made clear, we can combat so much inertia and defeatism. And we need leadership to bring the multiple struggles together, more tightly unified and organized. I will be following this page and hope to hear back from you. Meanwhile, yesterday I was truly moved to hear this speaker:

“What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb – but the darkness of the womb?” -Valarie Kaur #RevolutionaryLove

Great to hear from you, and I appreciate Valarie Kaur’s statement. And your point about leadership. Yes, good old Spring Garden Street in the small neighborhood that first defied a go-go university, and then a go-g0 mayor, to live on instead of getting squashed by the plans of “higher” authorities. Hope to see you in a campaign.

The effort to get rid of what we do not like is reactive, retrospectively oriented problem solving. The effort to obtain what we want is proactive problem solving, or designing a desirable future – an ideal yet possible future – and finding ways to move toward it as effectively as possible.

In my mind the Declaration of Independence still defines the ideal future we want: the opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or justice, equality, and freedom. Those are the ideals worth fighting for.

We need to talk about what that would look like, our vision, then we can choose the road(s) to get there.

Personally, I employ Amartya Sen’s Capability Theory to justify government systems to satisfy the Declaration that enables man as artist to create the life he values

I don’t know sources that have made that comparison. Maybe it’s more attractive in some morbid way to focus on what DIDN’T work than what did? My book Viking Economics is the main source that I know so far but hopefully other readers will weigh in. Of course there are economic and cultural differences among these countries that are significant. Still, that’s always true, and what really matters for movements is “how to be strategic and use my assets and minimize my liabilities?”

I am now working on an article that will go into more detail about what worked for Swedes and Norwegians in confronting fascism, and what didn’t work for the Germans and Italians.

A teaser: finding common ground with others on the Left with whom you have disagreements is much much smarter than constantly focusing on disagreements. The right wants to divide us. Why would we help them? In both Germany and Italy the Left constantly fought within itself, even physically. What a gift to the fascists!

Hi George, I tried to reach you at the yahoo email address posted on Training for Change, but it bounced back. My wife is working on an article on nonviolent protest and would like to interview you. Thanks! Brian Sherwin

Any attempt to get a positive result from our federal or state governments that relies on a politics process is doomed to fail. The belief that we have to wait for the government to change our lives to be something we like or want is a lie. The government votes to keep fossil fuels for another generation when the whole world has recognized they need to stop using them today. We can all just stop using fossil fuels..It would be inconvenient but that chaos would cause an immediate change to keep people going to work and shopping. The government tells us to hate people of color, blame the poor for poverty, worry about terrorism, we just decide not to comply. We get to know each other, to keep our economies local, to help each other and not to let fear guide us. There is a huge amount of change we can implement right now just by doing it. We don’t have to wait for the government who will never help us. We are told by academic studies like the one that Dr.’s Gillen and Paige did at Princeton two years ago in which they found a ZERO correlation between the will of the people and the actions of congress. They evaluated our political system and classified us as an oligarchy. Lots of other work confirms. this.

Thank you for offering us some down-to-earth insights and a bit of hope. You are a breath of fresh air. I’d love to see this on CommonDreams – it’s precisely what people are aching for. Maybe you could offer it to them directly.

Four questions:

1. Your main thesis – to disrupt things rather than waste time on politics – makes sense, except how does one avoid getting the general populace merely pissed off by the disruption?

2. How does one deal with provocateurs, who can negate all our efforts at showing a nonviolent face?

3. So the “Indivisible” guide, that suggests emulating the successful Tea Party strategy of being purely defensive, is exactly opposite of what is needed?

4. The really disheartening action by Trump so far is his actions re: SCOTUS. That can wipe out a century’s worth of gains and haunt us for a generation or more. Suggestions on how to deal with that?

Arden, your four questions are good and tough, and I hope others will tune in with responses to them. I see the ten points as a draft, for all of us to join in strengthening through dialogue.

My starting point that relates to all four questions is the centrality of nonviolent direct action campaigns that take a heart-felt issue, frame a demand for change related to that issue, identify a target that can do meet the demand, and engage in a series of nonviolent actions over time that escalate and draw in sufficient allies so the target is forced to yield the demand. In multiple countries — certainly ours — there are many campaigns that have done just that, and serve as examples we can learn from.

Question 1: Most successful campaigns choose tactics that disrupt the power-holders maximally while disrupting the people minimally. “The people,” after all, are often prospective allies, so why disrupt them if not necessary? (I’ve never gotten this joy of surging into the streets and blocking traffic — just measure the amount of disruption for the target — say, a bank that’s financing the Dakota pipeline — compared with disrupting people driving to pick up their children at daycare?)

Because a campaign is specific rather than just a general commotion, it’s possible to be thoughtful and often amazingly precise. Some campaigns have won through a boycott, for example. When we think “campaign,” we think scalpel instead of hammer. But there’s no doubt that precise disruption can even drive some targets right out of business!

Smart strategy employs the more grossly disruptive tactics when one already has a mass movement and very high drama, such that people understand and accept that it’s OK to disrupt that widely (e.g. through a general strike) because the campaign has reached its climax and has a realistic chance of winning. I.e., the most massive kind of disruption will be short-lived. My book Toward a Living Revolution goes into this fairly graphically (see the fourth stage).

2. Again, campaigns use strategies and tactics that make provocateurs far less of a problem than the one-off “mass bashes” that don’t win anything anyway. Check out the civil rights campaigns, where SCLC and SNCC sometimes fielded very large numbers (the industrial city of Birmingham was actually dislocated) but where the campaign organizers were able to maintain remarkable discipline and deal with provocateurs, and usually win breakthroughs despite repressive violence.

3. The Tea Party is not at all a model for what we should do because its opportunity was structured by its positioning: it was organized by, and allied to, elements of the 1 percent. It could function within the Party of No, and stiffen the resolve of the Party of No (the Republicans) by being even more uncompromising, because that was the will of its masters. The masters had a political economic goal that was served by “No.” As Warren Buffett pointed out to the NY Times in 2006, the super rich had been winning what Buffett called “the class war” for decades, and hallowing out our society while reaping incredible riches. Of course the 1 percent’s answer to reformist Democrats was, “No.”
We have an entirely different agenda and are positioned differently in relation to the major parties. Our inspiration needs to be drawn from social movements that had reform/radical change goals (like the civil rights movement) and were in fact organizing against the will of the 1 percent. Could the civil rights movement have gained breakthroughs on segregation through defense? In the period of progress (also true for labor and women’s movements) they were dramatically on the offensive. It was when they switched to defense (under Reagan) that they began their losing streak, and Buffett’s description of the winning economic elite comes into play.
The power tool that most begs to be used on the offense, by its nature, is the nonviolent direct action campaign. That’s one reason to use it, while curing ourselves of our fearful defensive and defeatist moves.

4. A law professor friend of mine whose specialty is the Supreme Court claims that mainstream opinion always exaggerates the Olympian distance of the Court from the rest of society, as if it operates in a vacuum once set in motion by Presidential appointments. On the contrary, when progressive movements are running smart campaigns and therefore changing popular opinion, the Supremes change, too. We have that example right in front of us in relation to sexual orientation. I was arrested in the largest civil disobedience held at the Supreme Court when it held that state sodomy laws were Constitutional. That was when the LGBT movement was in its infancy. It grew, while the Court overall became more conservative. And the Court nevertheless changed on that issue.

In the last chapter of Viking Economics, which is focused on the U.S. and prospects for major change, I reveal a whole lot of this kind of political sociology that over and over draws our attention to what works and has worked for us (and the Nordics and other countries) historically. The Nordics saw through the pretend democracy they had, realized they needed to wage a nonviolent revolution, and went ahead and did that instead of doing what hadn’t worked before. The Ten Point Plan is all about not wasting our time with stuff that hasn’t worked, but instead putting our talent and energy into what has worked (of course improving it operationally), and this time scaling it up so it can push ahead on a far more powerful level.

Earlier in the Living Revolution archive are many articles on how to start strong action groups, how to choose a target and design a winning campaign, how to organize volunteers within a campaign to maximize skill-sharing and leadership-development (this one is by Ryan Leitner, as a guest column a few weeks ago), etc.

Follow your interest and curiosity — more fun that way! The Living Revolution archive of columns is available by looking at the top of the WagingNonviolence home page and pressing “Columns,” then “Living Revolution,” and you can just scroll down through several years worth. The columns address different topics, sometimes in a sequence (like defending yourself nonviolently against violent attack and assault, and the sequence on how we’re conditioned by the social class we’re brought up in), and other themes are scattered throughout the archive because I’ve written to respond to different “hot topics” in the current news. For example, my classic column on non-military responses to terrorism was posted because of terror being very much on people’s minds at the time.

Within the columns there are often references to books, so, again, follow your own curiosity.

Isn’t number 8 pretty much what conservatives and Republicans did with the Powell Manifesto? I have wanted for years to see a progressive statement laying out goals and objectives in a manner similar to that of Powell.

Thanks, Richard, for calling attention to the parallel with the Powell Manifesto, which wasn’t consciously on my mind. The economic elite certainly did get enormous pay-off from following his advice to end what he thought was their ideological flabbiness and lack of confidence, and re-invest in their vision of what they want the U.S. to be (“Make America great again!”).

It’s certainly true, for us as well as for the economic elite, that “if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” To have a winning strategy, we need to know what it would mean to win, in specific, structural terms. And of course without a strategy, it’s just protest, protest, protest into the muck.

And it’s also true that, as important as Powell thought it was to firm up the right wing’s vision in order to assure its ability to occupy the commanding heights of our economy, he also made a lot of suggestions for strategy. And this Ten-point plan does that as well, and I’m now re-naming it to get away from the narrowness of focusing on Trump. I’m calling it:

“TEN-POINT PLAN FOR A MOVEMENT OF MOVEMENTS”

The “movement of movements” phrase goes back at least a dozen years and is used by both activists and scholars. Hopefully it will keep our strategy focused on the “middle distance” — the point where we can force a power shift on the national level and open the space at least for something of the sort the Nordics have — rather than consume ourselves with ideological disputes between radicals of different schools of thought. It’s partly the old “ideology wars” that spooked activists against vision in the first place! Pragmatic me believes that we’ll get much farther by building a mass movement based on what could be called a “common sense vision” such as the Nordic model is rather than isolate ourselves from the majority by arguing about the longer-range vision each of us has.

George, a small group of activists here are energized to move ahead. What actions can they take as a small group, or as individuals, to further the goal of disrupting the powerholders through noncooperation?

Thanks for this request, Arden — you represent a growing number of people I’m meeting around the country on my book tour who are newly motivated to join or launch a nonviolent direct action campaign. Therefore I’m writing a column for this site that will offer a lot of tips for how to help campaigns go well — based on a lot of new as well as old experience!

In the meantime, here’s something to get you started:

ASSEMBLE YOUR CORE GROUP.

The people you draw together to start your campaign hugely influence your chance of success. Simply putting out a call and assuming that whoever shows up is the winning combination is a set-up for disappointment. It’s fine to make the general call, but ahead of time make sure that you have the ingredients for a strong group that is up for the task. This article explains how to do that:

Choose an issue that people care about a whole lot and that has something about it you can win on. Winning matters because many people have some feelings of hopelessness and helplessness when it comes to current trends, even if they don’t want to admit it. That psychological ambivalence limits our ability to make a difference. Most people therefore need a win to develop self-confidence, to be able to access fully their own power.

For example, many people care deeply about peace – the cumulative suffering associated with war in the U.S. is enormous. What is an aspect of “peace” that can be won? Larry Scott successfully confronted that question in the 1950s when the nuclear arms race was spiraling out of control. Some of his peace activist friends wanted to campaign against nuclear weapons, but Larry knew such a campaign would not only lose but also, in the long run, discourage peace advocates. He therefore initiated a campaign against atmospheric nuclear testing, which, highlighted by nonviolent direct action, gained enough traction to force President Kennedy to the negotiating table with Soviet Premier Khrushchev.

The campaign won that demand, propelling into action a whole new generation of activists and putting the arms race on the larger public agenda. Some organizers “got” the strategy lesson of that campaign and won other victories through campaigns with winnable demands. Others went back to tackling the unwinnable, and the peace movement went into decline.

Sometimes it pays to frame the issue as defense of a widely-shared value, like fresh water (Standing Rock), but it’s important to remember the folk wisdom that “the best defense is an offense.” To walk your group through that complication – a framing that’s different from your strategy – read: https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/defend-yourself-go-on-the-offensive/.

DOUBLE-CHECK TO SEE IF THIS ISSUE IS REALLY VIABLE.

Sometimes the power-holders try to stop campaigns before they start by claiming that something is “a done deal” – when the deal could actually be un-done. In this article you’ll find both a local example and a national example where the power-holders’ claim was wrong, and the campaigners had a surprising degree of success. https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/un-done-deal-strategy-soul/.

At other times you might conclude that even though you might win, you’re more likely to lose. You might still want to initiate the campaign because of the larger strategic context. Will Lawrence describes in this article an example of this, where in the fight against nuclear power plants a number of local campaigns failed to prevent their reactor from being built but enough other campaigns did win so that the movement as a whole forced a moratorium of nuclear power in the U.S. The nuclear industry’s goal of a thousand nuclear plants was foiled, thanks to the grassroots movement. Will’s article shows how that worked:https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/4-lessons-for-climate-organizers-from-the-anti-nuclear-movement/.

ANALYZE THE TARGET.

The “target” is the decider who can yield to your demand, for example a bank’s CEO and board executive committee that decides whether to stop financing a pipeline.

Thank you, George, so glad you highlighted Bill Moyer’s four roles of social change. As you know, Bill emphasized that our goal as social activists was to “win the hearts and minds of the general populace.” We need Citizen Activists now, more than ever as our basic democratic values are threatened. I am working on a follow-up to Doing Democracy (I was Bill’s primary co-author) to support people in playing these roles effectively. I hope to finish Still Doing Democracy: Finding Common Ground and Acting for the Common Good soon. See the website in development http://stilldoingdemocracy.com/app/
Thanks for still making “necessary trouble, JoAnn McAllister

I live in Rockford, IL – a community with a lot of Scandanavians. I also just finished reading Viking Economics and enjoyed it very much. I would like to know whether Mr. Lakey is interested in speaking in our community and, if so, what his fee might be.

Amazing you wrote just now because I’ve been trying to decide when to come to Illinois on my “Viking Economics” book tour. I’ve been from Alaska to Florida, Arizona to New Hampshire, North Dakota and Minnesota to New York, but not yet to Illinois!

Please write back making it clear to the editor that you want me to get your email address (it doesn’t come through automatically), and we’ll talk about options.

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